Perform user acceptance testing

01/18/2018

2 minutes to read

In this article

VSTS | TFS 2018 | TFS 2017 | TFS 2015

Today's faster development pace requires tools that
enable test teams to more easily verify value based
on business requirements, and the high quality
software demanded by customers.
This type of testing is often referred to as
user acceptance testing and is available as a
feature in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and Team
Foundation Server (TFS).

Typically you create a Test Suite using a formal
requirement work item type. However, today’s
agile teams often prefer to work from User Stories
or Product Backlog items as their requirements.

Before you start

Assign and invite testers

VSTS makes it easy to assign
testers to individual test cases. A typical
scenario for user acceptance testing is the ability
to not just assign one tester to a test case (see
Search for and assign testers) but assign
multiple testers an entire set of tests.

This can also be accomplished by selecting the
suite and choosing Assign testers to run all
tests. This option also enables the sending of
emails to the testers assigned to the tests.

An important feature of user acceptance testing
is that the testers may in fact be the business
owners who created the original business
requirements.

Search for and assign testers

In scenarios where you have large development teams
the ability search for an individual is also
important. Choose Assign tester from the drop-down
menu. In the shortcut menu, choose Assign testers
to run all tests and select the testers you want to
include.

Set the Send email option to send all
of them a notification email.

Easily track results

A key principle of good user acceptance testing practice is to minimize the effort required to determine whether a requirement has been achieved.
There are two ways this can be achieved, you can focus on individual test runs and tests in the Test hub to see which failed or use the charts views make it much easy and accessible to all members of VSTS makes this much easier.

Note: The dashboard display shown here is also used
for other types of testing such as continuous testing.

If you don't see the data or information you expect in
the dashboard charts, verify that the columns in your
data have been added to the Tests view.
For details see this blog post.